


want, need & the vast space in between

by QueenOfTheWesternSky



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 05:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11684637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheWesternSky/pseuds/QueenOfTheWesternSky
Summary: They’re seven when she tells him with all the certainty one had at that age; “When I become captain of my own ship, you can be my first mate.”He likes the sound of that.





	want, need & the vast space in between

On the Isle, parents that don’t care are dime a dozen. There’s an eternal sense of resignation to the place; there’s no point in attempting to be happy, to live peacefully, for no one will care. Auradon hasn’t so much as glanced at them in the decades since the barrier was put up. There are two kinds of people; the resigned and the malicious. The ones who scramble to scrape by and try to keep their heads down, and the ones with the grand ambitions, the ones who want to go places, the ones who dream of punching a hole through the barrier so they might fight their way to something better.

Harry was never sure what kind he was.

His father is all drunken tales of a time more glorious, before the barrier when he sailed the seas—he speaks of revenge on an immortal boy, of a crocodile, of a wondrous land just beyond the horizon. Nothing he says means very much anymore. The Isle is full of former villains, malevolent rulers hated by their people and sorcerers stripped of their powers. His mother he doesn’t remember, only that she was soft, and she loved them, and she died of something that could have been prevented if they had lived on the other side of the barrier.

Harriet is everything their father wants, and still isn’t good enough, because she is here. Because she, like them, will always be here. A pirate who never set sail, she takes his every criticism as a challenge, and uses it to fuel the ever growing rage inside her—what it’s directed at Harry doesn’t know. The barrier, the king, their father.

CJ runs away every other week, when she’s young they pretend not to know where she went so she might know some semblance of victory in a world that will always make sure she loses. She hides in a cave in the shoreline, not far from the docks. One day she runs and simply doesn’t come back. He checks the cave and finds it empty. If she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be. Harry wishes he’d indulged her more when he had the chance. Unlike Harriet, at least the Isle hadn’t made her cruel.

No, he was never sure quite where he fit in this little arrangement— _family_ seems like such a strong word—but Uma always knew where she did. Maybe he admired that about her.

Uma was going to take the world by storm, of this she was certain. She had been since they were children. She was going to break down the barrier even if she had to do it with her bare bleeding fists. And the way she spoke, the way she _oozed_ confidence, certainty and purpose…well. Maybe that was what he’d always lacked.

They’re seven when she tells him with all the certainty one had at that age; “When I become captain of my own ship, you can be my first mate.”

He likes the sound of that.

 

Harry learns quickly that if he stays with Uma and Gil, out all night causing mischief, he doesn’t have to go home and listen to his father spit venom over CJ running away, or Harriet being gone, or about him being…him.

They stay out all night breaking windows and picking pockets. They split the spoils between them, because Uma claims to be a fair captain.

He feels happy for the first time he can remember with them, sitting on the edge of the docks, kicking their legs back and forth as they split the spoils of their reign of terror. But he keeps that to himself; people aren’t happy on the Isle, and when they are, the universe will surely soon step in to rectify such a mistake.

 

Gil drifts from them and Uma becomes bitter. She shouts and screams and swears revenge against some unknown force, and Harry waits for her to turn on him too. She never does, so he stays.

It’s then, with Gil gone and before the _Lost Revenge_ is theirs, that they become close.

Neither of them sleeps much; Uma works almost all night cleaning fishes and the Chip Shop ready for the next day, but she never slows down or admits to being tired. When her hands become calloused not from sword fighting but from the rough dish sponge, he takes over and lets her rest on her throne. Claims it’s his job as her first mate to do the dirty work for her, because admitting he worried would never go over well with her.

Emotions only counted as weaknesses there.

She never says thank you, but there’s something soft in her eyes that no one else gets to see. He finds an ease, a comfort in being hers, in doing as she asks of him. It reminds him he has a place here, with her, no matter how lacking in glamour it might be.

Because one day, Uma will rule the world, and he knows she won’t forget the people that respected her when she was just _Shrimpy._

They’re fifteen when the _Lost Revenge_ becomes theirs—or rather, becomes Uma’s. The ship is a mess, and will, in all likelihood, never sail again. So it takes up a permanent spot at the docks and it becomes home. Uma takes the Captain’s Quarters, and true to her word, dubs him her first mate.

All he feels is relief for an excuse to never again darken his father’s doorstep.

For a while, Uma is all smiles. Or at least, her smiles become less sharp around the edges—less shark like in their intensity. When he stands to leave for the crew quarters, she quips that he’s far too tall for the hammocks, and likely to fall out of them. Better he take a bed.

The captain’s bed is large and long, and Uma, for all her queenly presence, is small. She doesn’t sprawl like he expects, but rather curls tightly around a pillow and sleeps, taking up barely a quarter of the bed.

He stretches out like a cat in the sun, and drifts off trying to remember the last time he had a _bed_ to sleep in.

 

Things change and they don’t. Mal and her little gaggle of friends abandon the Isle for greener pastures at the first chance, and Uma takes the abandonment personally—as she does everything. Gil returns to the fold and joins the crew, and Harry tries to think of the boy who was his friend once, rather than the one who drifted away from them when the going got tough. He tries not to take out his resentment on him too much; Gil has always been such a soft soul.

If the crew has something to say about the sleeping arrangements, they keep it to themselves for fear of his hook or Uma’s sword.

She schemes revenge for a wrong he’s sure Mal doesn’t even think she’s committed—it would require her thinking of _any_ of them left behind. And they were always the ones left behind. Harry listens to endless hours of her ranting, raving, _planning_ for their eventual escape. As always, he believes her. Because there’s never been a moment his whole life that he didn’t believe Uma would get him out of here. She’s a big fish in a small pond, and conquering the Isle was never going to be enough for her. She’s got ambitions, knows what she wants.

He supposes he does too; _her._

 

The Cotillion is broadcast even to the Isle, and it makes him sick to his stomach to think he let her go _alone._ She’d always been able to take care of herself, and even if she couldn’t hold her own in a fight (she could), out there she has all the magic of the seas to command.

He still wishes he’d convinced her to take him with her.

Harry watches her descend the stairs into the arms of that try-hard king, and feels a jealous knot twist in his stomach. He knows the plan. _He knows._ But it doesn’t help any. Everything else evaporates when it doesn’t work, when she slinks away into the sea and he wonders with sickening horror if this is it.

If he’s been left behind.

(He hasn’t)

It’s almost daybreak when he hears footsteps approach the doors to the Captain’s Quarters—no one approaches unless they have to, unless the sky is falling and the end is near. He hates himself for being hopeful that she would come back here when she had managed to get out.

The door swings open and she casts her eyes up at him, looking more defeated than he had ever seen her. Defeat had never meant a thing to her; it was just motivation, a challenge to rise up and be better next time, so that she could prove them wrong for ever thinking that she _couldn’t._

This is something different. She casts her eyes down and walks past him, throws her gloves and earrings into the corner, pulls the pins from her hair and lets the braids cascade down her back like a waterfall. He moves quickly and quietly, comes to stand behind her in front of the mirror; he’s never been more acutely aware of how small she seems compared to him.

“We lost, Harry— _I lost._ ” She murmurs quietly as he unzips the water heavy dress and pushes it from her shoulders.

“So we make a new plan, a better one.” He replies with the same absolute certainty he had learned from her. He grabs the nearest shirt, an old, soft worn one of his, and pulls it over her head. “We lick our wounds, and tomorrow, we rally everyone, we come up with a new plan, we fight, we win.”

She opens her mouth to protest as she turns to face him, the two of them standing almost chest to chest. He quirks a brow, as if daring her to go on—for once, she doesn’t challenge him. Instead, she nods.

“We fight, we win.” Uma repeats back to him, as he gently nudges her towards the bed. And when she curls tightly around him instead of the pillow, he says nothing. After all, he’s her first mate, and that means being whatever she needs him to be whenever she needs him.

All he can do is hope that she’ll always need him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure where I was going with this, mostly I think I had a lot of feelings about Harry and Uma.


End file.
